Product Description

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Esther Cherrett comes from a proud line of midwives and was trained by her mother to take over the family calling. But when a scandal threatens all she holds dear, Esther takes a position as a teacher in the western mountains of Virginia instead. There she finds herself in the midst of a deadly family feud and courted by two men on opposite sides of the conflict. When it seems as though her past has followed her all the way into the mountains, all she wants is to run away again.

Publisher's Description

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Esther Cherrett comes from a proud line of midwives and was trained by her mother to take over the family calling. But when a scandal threatens all she holds dear, Esther takes a position as a teacher in the western mountains of Virginia instead. There she finds herself in the midst of a deadly family feud and courted by two men on opposite sides of the conflict. When it seems as though her past has followed her all the way into the mountains, all she wants is to run away again.

In this gripping story of trust, deception, and bittersweet loss, a young woman learns the true meaning of choices of the heart.

Author Bio

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Laurie Alice Eakes is the author of Lady in the Mist, Heart's Safe Passage, A Necessary Deception, A Flight of Fancy, and several other novels. She won a National Readers Choice Award for Best Regency in 2007 for Family Guardian. Laurie Alice writes full-time from her home in Texas, where she lives with her husband and sundry dogs and cats.

Publishers Weekly

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Midwife Esther Cherrett follows in the footsteps of generations of women delivering babies in coastal Virginia until scandal and tragedy threaten to ruin her mothers practice and Esthers reputation in this third novel, which continues the Midwives Series from Eakes (the Daughters of Bainbridge House series). To protect her parents, Esther abandons her calling as a midwife and leaves her coastal Virginia home to take a position as teacher to children in rural Appalachia. She is forced to reveal her healing skills, however, when she lands in the middle of a bloody, long-running family feud. Cousins Griff and Zach have vowed before God to end the killing, but when Griff is attacked mysteriously, an unmarried sister turns up pregnant, and both men find themselves falling in love with beautiful Esther, all hope of peace between the families might be threatened. Esther also must come to terms with the past that has followed her into the mountains and with feelings that God has abandoned her. She battles a growing attraction to one of the men in the face of past actions that she believes make her undesirable to any potential husband. Well-written descriptive passages help develop the mood, but the story offers little mystery, few details that set it in 1842, or much persuasive justification for Esthers self-loathing. Agent: Tamela Hancock Murray, Steve Laube Agency. (Jan.) 2012 Reed Business Information